


Piece of Art

by BittersweetParakeet



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Cancer, Loss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5328617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BittersweetParakeet/pseuds/BittersweetParakeet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is a painter. Dan is a struggling art student, and Phil's biggest fan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piece of Art

The first time Dan Howell met Phil Lester was at an art gallery. Dan had been a freshmen at university then, fresh-faced and eager to make a name for himself as an anti-realist. Phil was an up-and-coming artist with a small following. He was known for his colorful, bold Surrealist paintings, which Dan loved. So it could be attributed to luck when the two met. Cliché as it was, it was love at first sight. Five coffee dates and a movie later, Dan moved into Phil's tiny studio apartment. ´

That was when Phil began his masterpiece. It was intended to be an LSD trip-fest, with two lovers melding into one in a wash of bright colors. Dan would sit and watch Phil for hours on end as he mixed his colors and carefully applied them to the giant canvas. Even in its unfinished state, Dan thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world, besides the pale, blue-eyed man-child who was creating it. 

Dan tried to draw Phil on multiple occasions, but it never worked out. He just could not encapsulate the gentleness of Phil's features, nor could he recreate the perfection in his stance. He could draw Phil, but not as he saw him, and that frustrated him to no end. But Phil did not mind. He would simply ruffle Dan's hair and kiss him lovingly as encouragement. And Dan would pick up his pencil and try again. 

The diagnosis came shortly after Dan entered his third year of university. A tumor was growing in Phil's brain. At first, the doctor deemed it harmless and benign, but after Phil collapsed the second time, he reversed his previous diagnosis and said that it was indeed malignant. Phil underwent surgery to remove it, but it was too late. It grew once again, and this time, it became more aggressive. There was no hope left for him, and all he could do was wait.

Dan left university, despite Phil's protests. He did not care, though. All Dan wanted was to take care of Phil. his future be damned. Phil continued to paint, never rushing despite the timer that had been put on his life. He even painted when his legs failed him, and he was confined to a wheelchair. There were days where he could barely lift a paintbrush, and other days where his headaches were so bad, he could not even see. Yet, he still worked patiently on his painting, with a determination that was matched only by the sheer agony that plagued him every day. 

Towards the end of his life, he was so weak that he could not even move his arm. Even then, he tried to paint. Dan would have to move his hands for him. For hours, Dan would hold Phil's wrist, guiding him as per his instructions. After a while, Phil gave up, and he spent the remainder of his painful days in bed, looking wistfully out the window. Dan would later regard that time as when Phil truly died. What was Phil without paintbrush in hand, ivory skin spattered in rainbows? 

Phil died not long after he stopped painting. The day he died, he clasped Dan's hand in his own and gave it a squeeze. 

"Finish it for me?" he asked. Dan nodded, blinking back tears unsuccessfully. Phil smiled and closed his eyes. 

"Thank you. I love you, Dan," he whispered. Those were his last words. He died an hour after that, quietly and peacefully. Dan had watched his chest rise and fall for the last time, heard the last shaky exhale escape from his lips. 

Dan continued living in the small loft, and he returned to school the year after Phil's death. He kept Phil's masterpiece covered under a tarp in a corner of the living room. He could not bear to look at it. In between school and drawing, he soon forgot about the painting. 

In the years following Phil's death, Dan graduated and became known for his melancholic pastel drawings. Fame and fortune brought many the admirer Dan's way, both male and female, but Dan refused them all. His love for Phil had been so deep, and the wound that he left had festered into a hungry depression that left no room for another. So Dan went into his older years a lonely, gloomy man. 

One day, many years after Phil died, Dan happened across the painting. He had moved the easel into a closet some years back, and while on a quest for something trivial and unimportant, he found it. Finally, after so long, he removed the tarp. 

The colors were still vibrant, and the paint had not chipped away. Dan could see every deliberate brush stroke, every light flick of color. Incomplete, yet so breathtakingly gorgeous. In the storm of garish hues, Dan could make out two bodies pressed together in a brilliant embrace, so close that they seemed to become one psychedelic entity. They laid on something akin to a bed, though there was nothing there but empty, white canvas. The background was in its early stages, just a few guiding swirls of yellow and orange. Some swirls were crooked and ugly where Dan had helped Phil paint them on. 

Dan took out his pastels and chalks. He was not a painter, and never in a million years would he even think to paint over Phil's work. So he selected his colors and began to draw and blend. His style was a lot darker and grim than Phil's whimsical techniques, but he tried his best. 

It took a week to finish the drawing, a week where Dan shut himself in and took no breaks but for necessities. When he was finally done, he sat back to admire his work. Phil's work shone bright through the choking haze of oily, polychromatic pastel. He had ruined Phil's life's work, the masterpiece that never was. Faced with his crushing failure, Dan covered the painting once again, and threw it into a dark corner of the closet. 

And there it remained, for many, many years. 

 


End file.
